Saturday, 5 August 2017

Harmonia & Eno (Harmonia 76) - "Tracks and Traces" (1976/1997)

Most so-called 'Krautrock' was utter rubbish of course,mainly concerning a bunker full of hippified jam sessions and synthesiser knob twiddling.For every 'CAN' you had a hundred Amon Duul 1's.Other exceptions included the main players like Cluster (both with and without the 'K' or with or without Konrad Schnitzler),Faust,Early Ash Ra Temple,Guru Guru,and maybe even Tangerine Dream?

Notice I never mentioned 'Neu', who one really had to be there at the time to appreciate their impact. I heard 'Negativland'(The tune not the band) in about 1981, and thought 'wow what a group' So I sought out "Neu 1" and "Neu 2",which apart from that one track were utter shite, especially "Neu 2", which involved one of the tracks played at three different speeds!?....I did However appreciate the monotonous drumming, if not that flaccidly dull drum sound.But for the time they would have been a refreshing, almost 'Punk' style of no-nonsense simplicity, and a rejection of the endless guitar solo's and technical expertise that had given Rock'n'Roll a near lethal injection since 1968.

Michael Rother, of Neu, was also in Kraftwerk when they were krap too!....but the boy done good when hooking up with Cluster to form Harmonia, who were a fair to middling ambient motorik combo, much hyped by cool muso's everywhere.

Of course, Brian Eno had to get involved at some point, and here's the posthumously released (1997) tapes of those sessions in 1976.

Very soft and bubbly ambient rock they are too.Something to drift off to sleep to of an evening;and I don't mean that it's boring, just some type of musical heroin, but a lot less addictive. You can play Harmonia once and don't feel the need to go back immediately for more,unlike that opium plant bi-product for chavs and rock fantasists everywhere.

Cival Disobedience is good:

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”